Posts Tagged "gratitude"

On Saturday October 27th Source Centre co-hosted a Clear Day event with Integrate Chiropractic (Dr. Derek Cain). All week we have been receiving exceptional feedback from our attendees! Clear Days are a full day community healing event that Network Spinal Analysis (NSA) chiropractors around the world create to provide a focused and intensified environment for people who have been under NSA care. At Clear Days we provide 3 powerful entrainments to the participants over the course of the day. We generally have 4 or 5 NSA chiropractors working side by side during these sessions and with many people receiving entrainments at once a powerful synergy is created. The 3 entrainments take our participants on a journey through the “Seasons of Wellbeing”: Discover, Transform, and Awaken. We also provide workshops to deepen the healing process. This time around we had a Somato Respiratory Integration Workshop with Angie Dairou that left people with a deep knowing that they are “ENOUGH”… just as they are… even though they may have been told otherwise for much of their lives. We also had Virma take our participants through a Kundalini Yoga workshop which got people moving anger in their bodies and connecting with love in their heart. Myself and my husband, Dr. Robert Coddington, shared a workshop on understanding masculine and feminine energies within each of us and we experienced how to cultivate more masculine or feminine presence in our bodies. Included in the day was a truly delicious lunch provided by “Portobello Burger”. I used to be surprised by the magic that would unfold with these healing events. Nowadays I come to expect it. This Clear Day did not disappoint. It is incredible to witness our Practice Members touching deep places within and then being opened up to the magic within their hearts. I am grateful to the work of Dr. Donald Epstein who has helped us provide such powerful and transformational work to so many people. I am also grateful to our communities and participants who love this work and keep coming back for more and more depth, healing, and growth. Here is what one of our participants, who has been to numerous Clear Days, wanted to share with anyone who is interested in participating: “Enter with a heart that is open to yourself, others, and discovery. Suspend the desire to judge or leave with answers. Be open. Then hold the events, feeling, energy of the day in your heart for as long as possible afterwards and you will learn and/or grow from the richness of everyone’s experience.” Stay tuned for the next Clear Day – set to happen in the spring of...

(Image: Heart Shaped Plumeria Flowers by Witthaya Phonsawat / FreeDigitalPhotos.net) Confession: I’ve never given blood before. In fact, I’m quite squeamish when it came to these sort of things (which is ironic if you know me and my interests). I’ve wanted to give blood, love the idea of sharing a precious resource, giving myself literally and helping others in life and death situations. Because when you think about it, it always is life and death when it comes to blood. But the thought of it has always made me feel faint and slightly nauseated. I had blood drawn once for medical testing and I hated the whole experience. It made me feel weak, weird, swooning. I couldn’t look as it was being done. I swore that far too much blood was drawn and I was left with far too little. This whole thing was not for me, unfortunately. Then in early 2010, my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The doctors told her she would be transfusion dependent for the remainder of her life. Over the course of that summer and early fall, she received a few, regular transfusions. She disliked the process but was extremely grateful for the gift of blood, as we all were because it meant she was still with us. As it turns out, her doctor’s pronouncement was wrong. With the help of a new diet and some care, she began regenerating her own blood again (a story for another post) and lived another year and a half until she passed, peacefully, earlier this year. For me, there were so many things to learn in this time and so many feelings to process. One thing that keeps recurring was the need to contribute, in gratitude, and in honour of mom who wouldn’t have had the extra time she had to revisit old friends and old family, to see her youngest daughter married, to impart love and wisdom to her grandchildren without someone’s (and actually many peoples) selfless gift of blood. So, my nervousness remains but it is a slight thing in the face of my commitment. And nothing would please me more than to have You join me and the others at Source Centre in making a donation of blood in our Partners in Life program. In exchange for your gift, we want to offer you thanks with a gift in return. Please click here for more information on how you can join our program and the gifts that await. With love and...

(Image: sscreations / FreeDigitalPhotos.net) Recently, I had a couple of wisdom teeth extracted. Admittedly, it was an uncomplicated procedure as far as these things go but I was amazed and delighted with the speed of my recovery. After a couple of days, I felt fully healed and experienced barely any pain throughout. As I contemplated and expressed gratitude for this good fortune, I realized there were definitely some things that helped speed along and ensure a fantastic recovery. I would like to share them here with you in the hopes that you might find them useful too. In no particular order: Daily meditation and prayer: we may hear a lot these days about the value of this practice and there is good reason for it! Given our busy lives lived within chaotic and noisy cities, it is absolutely vital to create a quiet, centering space within. The more I practice this, the quicker and easier am I able to access the calm within even the most stressful times, thereby easing any tension and anxiety. Prayer is a relatively new addition for me and I like to end my meditations with a short wish that I may meet all that is coming my way with dignity and grace; that I am able to surrender to the things I cannot change. That I accept and trust. In the weeks before my appointment, I also added some affirmations specifically directed towards my procedure. In the meditative state is where I employed them and they ran along the lines of: I am a terrific healer. I heal quickly and well. (Visualizations, too, work wonders if you are a visual type.) Support: I found it invaluable to know and understand the type of support I would need in the lead up to the procedure, the duration, and the recovery period. Then I ensured that I asked for it. For me, this meant having a knowledgeable and gentle dentist (a huge, huge thanks to Dr. Kevin Kliman and staff) whom I trusted and knew respected my anxiety issues around dental care. It also meant having a loved one come with me to my appointment, wait for me, greet me with loving arms when it was over, and help me home (then make me mashed potatoes for dinner because it was pretty much all I could eat). It also made me feel better to talk about my impending procedure because I felt nervous about it and talking helps me. It allowed me to commiserate and receive words of support and counsel from those who had already been through such a thing. It helped me feel less alone. For all of us, support means something different but ultimately the important thing is to articulate to yourself what it is exactly that you need. Then, ask for it! If we carry unspoken expectations, we’re bound to be disappointed. Better to connect and discover what you need and then find the help. Most of us are delighted to help, but we just need to know how. Plan ahead for rest: we push ourselves very hard and often get caught in a mindset that we have to do everything ourselves. The world won’t fall apart if we plan for an extra day or two of rest, even if we think we’re feeling okay to continue on as before. I found it very helpful to know I had an extra couple of days blocked off to heal; it eased any anxiety I may have nursed about having to go back to work when I wasn’t quite ready. We can’t heal fully...

(Image: africa / FreeDigitalPhotos.net) Holiday Food Drive Details here >>> At Source Centre, you may have noticed that we love to talk about food and gratitude. They are rather complementary. Healthy, wholesome food nourishes and sustains us. It is key to allowing our bodies, and therefore our minds and spirits, to operate to their full, amazing capacity. We are grateful everyday for the food we have to eat, as it becomes a part of our being. In these colder months and as the holidays approach, it’s easy to cultivate a sense of appreciation for a hot meal that fills and warms the body with the marvelous bounty of nature. From this place of deep gratitude follows our desire to extend and share that bounty. It is in this spirit that we embarked on a food drive this 2011/12 holiday season in support of Second Harvest. For the past 26 years, Second Harvest has been picking up donations of excess food, which would otherwise go to waste, and delivering that food to 216 community agencies in Toronto. Second Harvest delivers food to social service agencies that serve a wide variety of people in need; children in breakfast programs, women fleeing domestic abuse, newcomers to Canada, homeless people, those struggling with addiction, seniors on fixed incomes, those facing mental illness, those affected by the recession and many others who have fallen on hard times. During the holiday season, even as the news bombarded us incessantly with all the challenges and troubles in our world, YOU CAN and YOU DID help make a difference. The simple and wholesome act of sharing food benefits all. Your food contributions at Source Centre brought our food bin to overflowing with over 850lbs of food, enough to feed 850 people. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. With love and gratitude, The Source Centre...

I love books. I always have. Books have always been a sort of lifeline for me. As a child, they allowed me an escape into different worlds and experiences; at times, they articulated how I felt but couldn’t express; and they taught me much about people and the world around me. Over the years, my relationship with books has ebbed and flowed but has remained strong. Now, books are less an escape and more a solace, and a source of wisdom and inspiration. They are a bridge that connects me to people and stories from centuries past and far off places. They are both treasure and comfort. And, in my mind, a lasting investment whatever the circumstance! No matter how broke I’ve been over the years, I would treat myself to a treasure hunt at the local Goodwill and strike gold for a dollar or two. I’m also that person who loves stumbling upon a box at the end of a front lawn where some thoughtful resident has left books for a bibliophile like myself to rustle through. As a result, I have grown a massive library and a guarantee of wisdom and inspiration for years to come. I garner a sense of peace from this in the same way that my parents feel about their stacks of flour and canned goods! Do you love books too? Then I invite you to join us for our inaugural Source Centre Book Club gathering on Tuesday November 29th at 6:30pm. We will be discussing Elizabeth Lesser’s marvelous book Broken Open: How difficult times can help us grow. Writing in short, episodic chapters opening with inspiring and thoughtful quotes to ponder, Lesser takes personal stories, both her own and others, and guides us through the dark, difficult parts of life. While pain in our lives is inevitable and inescapable, do we have to suffer? And if not, how do we eliminate the suffering? Can we take the difficult, most painful experiences to rise up renewed and healed? And grateful for those painful times? I look forward to a lively, thoughtful discussion with good company and some light refreshments. All are welcome but please call 416-923-4325 or email us to register as space is limited P.S. Don’t think you can finish the book in time? Give it a try ~ it’s a great read you’ll not want to put down! Find out more about Broken Open. What are people saying about Broken...